In Defense of the Liberal Arts
How the liberal arts can benefit individuals and society
For a variety of reasons universities have faced budget challenges over the last several years, which has only been exacerbated by the pandemic. Usually the first thing on the chopping block are programs not viewed as pre-professional, such as the University of Kansas cutting its humanities department or the University of Vermont cutting a number of liberal arts programs. These types of cuts indicate a preference for more pre-professional education and suggest that a broader liberal arts education is expendable: nice if you can afford it but not essential to the mission of the university. Universities have this calculation upside down...here’s my case.
#1-A broad liberal arts education is the perfect type of education to prepare for a life in the workplace. Forty-nine percent of people have made a dramatic career change during their working life, most because of a lack of satisfaction in their previous career. And while it is difficult to determine just how many different careers people will have, they do change jobs an average of 12 times. Some of the changes are surely within a career field, such as moving from one accounting job to another, but some of it will entail different career fields and even different jobs within a career will require different skills. Changing jobs for vertical promotion within a career is easier with a broader array of skills and broader background. And this is exactly the benefit of a broad liberal arts education. It does not mean that you only major in a humanities field and can’t major in a pre-professional program, such as nursing, or a STEM field, such as engineering. It means that regardless of your major you take a variety of courses in all fields in order to provide the student with a broad education and exposure to a number of disciplines and skills instead of a narrow education only within your chosen career field. As the numbers above indicate people will do different things throughout their lives. Some of this will be for personal satisfaction, some of it will be because of technological change and some of it will be because of economic dislocation. Narrow education that prepares students for one career do them a disservice in the type of dynamic world we live in. The long term benefits are seen when looking over the full work-life of individuals. Humanities and social science graduates earn as much as or more, and are as equally employed as those with professional degrees. As the figure below indicates, individuals see the value of liberal arts as they progress through their careers.
#2-Liberal arts majors are in demand in the tech industry. The president of Microsoft has argued that tech needs more liberal arts majors. Google has found that STEM expertise is last in their list of top eight characteristics for employment. Characteristics such as communication, empathy and making connections across complex ideas all rate higher. Why are liberal arts majors in demand? Tech companies are increasingly concerned about communication, leadership, emotional intelligence and ethics. These are characteristics generally more associated with a broader liberal arts education and ones that are more fully developed over time. Technical skills, such as coding, can be learned more quickly. The Microsoft article linked above also demonstrates concern that as technology becomes more interactive and artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated, there is a need for non-STEM majors to keep the “human” elements in mind. Again, it is not one or the other. A computer science major, with a minor in philosophy or a philosophy major, with a minor in computer science. Or simply a computer science major with a degree from a strong liberal arts university with a diverse general education program. Exposure to other disciplines and other ways of thinking is what the tech companies desire.
#3-Even without the employment benefits, a liberal arts education is important for the health of civic life. A core purpose of a liberal arts education is to create broadly educated citizens to participate in the social, economic and political life of their community. As the saying, which is often misattributed to Jefferson but is nonetheless true, “An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people”. The core challenges our democracy faces would all be improved by broader liberal arts education. The inability to have civil debate, lack of historical and political knowledge, a lack of understanding of the economy and statistics and a general disregard for community are all challenges that a liberal arts education should address. In his book, Civility, Stephen L. Carter defines civility as “the discipline of our passions for the sake of living a common life with others''. This is the purpose of liberal arts education. We are taught humility and concern for others by studying the history of humankind. We are taught empathy and the value of relationship through the study of social sciences. We are taught to cherish beauty and the truly sublime things in life during the study of literature and nature. We are taught logic and well-reasoned argumentation through the study of philosophy and science. In short, we learn that we are not the center of the universe and we need to both critically evaluate our own perceptions and discipline our passions to live with others. The move over the last few decades to an education that is solely focused on getting a job afterward or is narrowly focused in one discipline explains a great deal of our present political situation.
The liberal arts in higher education is constantly under threat at a time when it is needed most. This is also true at the secondary education level as well. If students receive a broader education they will be better prepared for a quickly changing job market and be citizens ready to positively engage in the political life of the country. Universities, administrators and state legislatures around the country should not be so quick to cut liberal arts program at the first sign of financial trouble.